Before the 2nd half of yesterday's game, if everyone is honest, pretty sure we all would have been happy if someone said at the beginning of the year, we'd have 7 wins and 7 losses after 14 rounds and had been pretty competitive in the losses. Especially with the roster at our disposal.

Not sure why 40 minutes suddenly overrides the prior 1160 minutes.

Its like everyone expected it...saw it coming>?
I know I had a nagging fear in the back of my mind we couldnt keep hanging on for these close losses...lots of small cracks the 6 weeks or so

I can understand that, I said similar a few weeks ago that I was fearing that the wheels would fall off, just don't think it should negate all the other times we've been competitive. Hopefully they can turn it around against the Titans...................but I'm not holding my breath

Ivan will get them back on track we played ok first half and we were right in it , we will bounce back and hopefully these injuries will go away and give us a run at full strength for 3 or 4 games in a row then we can be judges to a degree

Newcastle supporters are the best supporters in the NRL. They have won a couple of wooden spoons in a row but still the supporters turn up filling their ground at every home game. This year most experts expected Newcastle to really move up the competition table but they haven't. Their supporters still turn up in numbers at every home game and also at most away games. Their supporters enjoy their football irrespective of what position they hold in the table.

Overall during this current season Wests Tigers have performed better than Newcastle but Wests Tigers fans are the greater complainers. Its time for Wests Tigers supporters to positively (not negatively)support their team and turn up to home games up in really big numbers at home games, especially Campbelltown where Wests tigers rarely win.

Last edited by Newtown on Mon 18 Jun, 2018 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

We've had a very tough start to the season and fared pretty well the bus has been out of tune lately but with rep round coming up the bus can go in for service the wheel nuts tighten and back on the he road with our new fullback Mybye and conductor (Farah) which hopefully will keep us to timetable if not bring on 2019.

Ivan’s selections are always going to be questioned, even when we do get a win. What I don’t get is the bagging of his recruitment. Other than Reynolds who seemed to be a panic buy, there was little available and frankly no one wanted to come to a club like ours. Our only draw card was Tedesco.

I’m sure there’s more but we do know we got knocked back by Latimore, Luke Lewis, Harawira-Naera, Morgan Boyle, Paasi, Vete, Walmsley, Gildart, Widdop, Connor Watson, Shaun Johnson and of course Rona.
Out of that lot was really hoping for CHN and Paasi and wanted us to look into either Albert Kelly or Cody Walker as they were both going through negotiations during the time of the Reynolds signing. Even thought Tyrone Roberts was another to look at.
The only other off contract players that spring to my mind -from last year or early this year - were Pearce, Guerra, Asofa Solomona, Aaron Gray, Alex Johnston, Blair and Ese Ese. But there’s probably a truckload more though.

So don’t think Ivan could’ve done any better on the recruitment front. It’s really not down to him why players aren’t coming here.

The player managers have got clubs over a barrel with these 4 year deals. They certainly seem to have correlation with the downturn of form with a lot of players.
Blake Ferguson only got a one year deal with Roosters and is having a stellar year.. the beauty of being at a club where players want to play at.

Newcastle supporters are the best supporters in the NRL. They have won a couple of wooden spoons in a row but still the supporters turn up filling their ground at every home game. This year most experts expected Newcastle to really move up the competition table but they haven't. Their supporters still turn up in numbers at every home game and also at most away games. Their supporters enjoy their football irrespective of what position they hold in the table.

Overall during this current season Wests Tigers have performed better than Newcastle but Wests Tigers fans are the greater complainers. Its time for Wests Tigers supporters to positively (not negatively)support their team and turn up to home games up in really big numbers at home games, especially Campbelltown where Wests tigers rarely win.

soon to be followed by the 'next year' posts as we re build onwards and upwards..

We have had good years between 2006 and now.

If you expected Cleary to do better than he has with what he was given then you had irrational expectations in my view.

Cleary recruited or re-signed more than 75% of the current starting 17..Yes I expected him to do better

Yeah but he recruited / re-signed them in the space of, what, 6 months Apr-Oct/17 (not including Mbye)?

One recruitment drive and all issues are fixed, Top 8 here we come? Just because the one coach did the recruitment for that period?

I could have expected Cleary to do better if he'd recruited top-quality players, or a few tactical signings into what was already a pretty good roster. He could not do either in his first season, we went after blokes like Widdop and RTS and they said no, used us to up their current deals.

Most of Ivan's signings were good - Reynolds has not delivered yet, Packer been better than average, Mats a bit average, Rochow was a value signings anyway, Thommo great, Fonua great, Milne self-destructed, Godinet another bargain-bin buy, Benji worked out well so far, Mbye is a pretty good one pending play...

Brooks, Lawrence all clearly improved since Cleary became coach. Marsters given a run and now one of our better players.

Overall I reckon pretty good effort in one-round of signings. Not Cleary's fault either that Tedesco left.

But he's still encumbered with teh rest of the squad. Perhaps yes he recruited 75% of the current 17, it makes sense he'd play the blokes he recruited, but what about the other 13? Aloiai, Sue, McQueen, Grant, Felise, MCK etc. all fairly average FGers